#eVil rocket

[rexsarmscar]

Gay horses :)

[koobiie]

based on that one q&a... i'm a sucker for a pokemon crossover

[sarasacuni]

SELF iSH - WILL WOOD & THE TAPEWORMS

[trustymikh]

All pokemon exist for team Rocket’s use, he says. They are simply a tool, he says

[diviedrawn]

Leon has some serious competition

[dwellermasked87]

Got very curious and decided to make this poll

[crimescrimson]

Red's Guide to Resident Evil [Volume Five - Resident Evil 1 (2002)]:

Scenery: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Characters: Jill Valentine [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] | Barry Burton [1] [2] [3] | Albert Wesker [1] [2] | Rebecca Chambers [1] [2] | Richard Aiken [1]

Creatures: All [1]

Alternate Costumes: Jill Valentine [1] [2] [3] [+1] | Rebecca Chambers [1]

[rhymeswithfart]

Assorted drawings

If you see this, Check this out:

This campaign is vetted at #10 on the gazavetters list. Low on funds: €354 / 30k

This is a family with two young children. Read their story, share, and donate if you can!

[im-not-a-l0ser]

Richie and Ruth have most definately gone as Jessie and James for Halloween.

[rroketa]

star bersus

[incorrectfatui]

Once upon a time in Zapolyarny Palace Dottore, about Pantalone: Can I tell him he looks nice?  Crucabena: ..Sure? Dottore: Can I tell him I respect him?  Crucabena: Maybe, if he asks.  Dottore: Should I show him an oil painting I made of us surrounded by our three cats and four dogs?  Crucabena: …  Crucabena: I’d maybe save that for later.

[rexsarmscar]

"I'll never forgive what they did to you."

(Or: PiC Dan has no idea that touching foreheads is how the velociraptors kiss)

Dan is @burgycreeper405-blog's and VR is mine!

[lil-shiro]

Lance Stroll during a press conference to unveil Adrian Newey as the teams managing technical partner 

[sarasacuni]

YOU CAN’T BREAK THIS FLAG

[trustymikh]

they were making out :)

[taffybee]

not that anyone's asking BUT my hot take on giovanni is he should be retired rn. not from like a "the pokemon company should stop talking about him" (weeeeelll that's sort of part of it but. hear me out) kind of way BUT in a. he should LITERALLY not be doing team rocket shit in ANY canon universe anymore. and it would be TOTALLY in-character of him to do so if the medias still using him characterized him the way he should be. welcome to my ted talk let me explain myself

FULL DISCLOSURE: i like giovanni. like, a not normal amount i fear. all of that opening sounds like i don't but i totally feel stupid emotions about this guy. anyways:

GEN 1. gen 1 games are like... NOT known for their compelling dialogue. and in cases like archie and maxie in gen 3 getting remakes in gen 6, their characterization and dialogue gets (kind of subjectively but i feel this is a popular opinion anyways) Much Better. i think that goes for a Lot of stuff where they give old guys new dialogue in spin offs (gestures at masters ex which i think is Great for making characters Actually Interesting)

but i feel like with giovanni there's been a DOWNGRADE in character since his appearance because he no longer Progresses.

i WILL say masters ex does Some Work to try and make him Deeper than just "I'm Evil for the sake of Being Evil grahgghh 😈" but it's like. overshadowed by All The Other Stuff.

plus he IS rainbow rocket giovanni in masters and i'm like OBSESSEDDD with team rainbow rocket. but i also don't think it should. Exist. I'M GLAD IT DOES but i find it out of character for giovanni to do At All. I CAN EXPLAIN I PROMISE.

team rocket's goals as an organization are and always have been: make money via stealing or otherwise exploiting pokémon. that's all it NEEDED to be. because it was gen 1 and no one needed to be ripping apart the universe yet.

giovanni himself sees pokemon as a means to an end. that much has stayed consistent in all of his appearances. but what CHANGES things in what happens when he LOSES for the FINAL TIME in r/b/y:

I WILL DEDICATE MY LIFE TO THE STUDY OF POKEMON. that's like CRAZY sort of redemption. and you Could argue against me to say "well have you considered he was lying" and i Have but i think it's SO much cooler if he was being legit. if he was so Changed by losing So Many Times to a little boy who just cared So Much for his pokémon that he needed to experience that for himself.

I mentioned in my previous giovanni post that pokémon origins has characterized giovanni "right" and THAT'S because via continuously fighting red and seeing his passion for battling as well as his love of pokémon firsthand, giovanni rediscovers his lost passion for pokémon that he had when HE was younger, and he sees HIMSELF in who red is and decides to disband team rocket after their gym battle so he can turn his life around. i HIGHLY recommend watching episode 3 of origins if you haven't seen it. it's freaking Marvelous.

ANYWAYS. THIS is the characterization of giovanni i support the MOST because it's not terribly complicated but still has nice depth to his character that you could read into.

BUT if we're going by this characterization of him, he should. NOT BE DOING TEAM ROCKET STUFF NOW! he SHOULD have been retired storywise by game freak after that and retired job-wise. studying pokémon and touching grass.

but THEN. gen 2 happens. (... well, gen 2 and the first gens 1/2 remakes.)

gen 2 introduces the concept of "let's bring giovanni back". which i wouldn't complain about if giovanni wasn't ALSO trying to get back. WHY. WE ESTABLISHED IN THE FIRST GAME HE'S DONE. and gen 2 didn't DIRECTLY SAY giovanni was up to come back (as far as i'm aware, i did NOT play gsc, someone correct me if i'm wrong). but when frlg released, they Changed dialogue from the original to FIT this idea:

NOW "studying pokemon" has become "training". there IS no character development for him here, he JUST wants to get stronger to be a Better mob boss. and this is supported by the celebi time travel event where he's ABOUT to rejoin team rocket before you beat him

the big problem with this (and any giovanni dialogue in the time travel event) for me is that it frames everything that happened to him in gen 1 as "giovanni wasn't a good enough mob boss then but now that he's had some time to Train he's ready to be a Better Mob Boss" WRONG! THAT WAS NEVER THE ISSUE!! part of the pros of team rocket at its peak was that giovanni was Unknown to most and could direct operations in the shadows AND he could keep his business as a gym leader because NO ONE KNEW. but now EVERYONE knows and team rocket can LITERALLY NEVER REACH THAT PEAK AGAIN. the ONLY CORRECT thing to do in this situation is Disband and Do Other Shit (cough cough study pokémon and touch grass cough cough)

this seems obvious to me that this desire to keep dragging him back into things is the games way of being like "woaahh!! callback time!!" and then later down the line "woaaahh!! nostalgia time!!!" (because they wouldn't have retconned that final gen 1 dialogue if it wasn't) and while i can Appreciate it to a degree (because i am Not Immune to getting STUPID EXCITED when old blorbos show up) i think continuing to make giovanni show up to Be Evil isn't the way to go about it. or at LEAST not canon timeline giovanni.

and the gen 1/2 remakes for ME is like... the beginning of the issue, but as we've gotten Further Away from gen 1 in time, the more i feel they stray from where he ended in the original in favor of making him More Blandly Evil. he feels constrained to one-liners about how the worlds an EVIL PLACE and he's just playing the game or whatever alpha sigma shit he's on in the masters trainer lodge

rainbow rocket is kind of CRAZY to me because they take this mob boss who likes exploiting pokemon and scientists for money and they make him start. opening interdimensional bad ending au wormholes to take over the world with aliens. (also having him willing to share the power with all the other evil bosses, some who have in their universes Successfully taken over the world??? heeeellll no. not even my proposed toned down characterization of this guy would be cool with that realistically.) it all just seems to be Way Beyond what team rocket SHOULD be doing. they're The Mafia. making The Mafia open wormholes is CRAZY. but giovanni HAS to be the main guy because. Nostalgia.

idk how much sense i make when i say this but when you make team rocket less cunning and less focused on doing their work in the shadows and running their shady operations stealthily. you get. a more ambitious team skull. and there's nothing WRONG with team skull but it's NOT WHAT TEAM ROCKET IS SUPPOSED TO BE. they've got more of a reputation than that but modern depictions of giovanni and the organization as a whole water him down to "i love Causing Problems" and less "i love Good Business"

whatever. giovanni in modern depictions MAKES SENSE if you followed along the slow regression of his character in real time. but i feel like if you look where he is now and look where he Ended in r/b/y you have like. Two Different Characters. and i think having a redeemed or even kind-of-half-redeemed giovanni could be SO much more interesting in showing up again than having him be Generally Evil

AND IT'S NOT LIKE THAT REALLY POSES ISSUES FOR MASTERS EX. cyrus is half-reformed WITHIN the story. archie and maxie too (although they were already kind of like that). lysandre HAS an evil moment but he DOESN'T DIE like he does in canon and THEN he's FINE. he still "runs" team flare but he's NOT LONGER A THREAT TO THE PROTAGONISTS

what i think COULD'VE been cool in some hypothetical scenario is have giovanni come back for cameos but Not as team rocket's leader. have him Turn Down the rocket admin radio broadcast. hell, having him come back to help the player Stop Them if he feels particularly annoyed. LET THAT MAN GO ON VACATION. WHATEVER. there's SO MUCH you can do with him the way cameos are done for the Other non-evil characters and there are options where you could Still battle him as a Test Of Strength but THERE'S JUST. SO MUCH WRONG WITH HIM STILL BEING OVERTLY EVIL.

i understand keeping giovanni evil for nostalgia. i Get it i PROMISE i do. i just think it makes him a weaker character, and the companies sacrifice character development for sales. but if you wanted to have a bad guy who was JUST BAD and would CONTINUE to be bad if given the chance,

GHETSIS IS. RIGHT THERE.

that's the end of that for me i think. i'm SO down to discuss or debate this take for fun. i just think giovanni should retire and pet his cat because it's funny.